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Book _^ Ass Pi_ 



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C.OPlfRIGHT DEPOSE 



POEMS 



POEMS 



BY 

ANDREW EDWARD WATROUS 

AUTHOR OF " YOUNG HOWSON's WIFE, AND 
OTHER STORIES," ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA b" LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

I 904 



ilhcu . i u- - / "J c •- 
CLASS CI 

COS^Y 3 



1 o 
XXc. No> 



?63 6>t5 



Copyright, ip04 
By y. B. Lippincott Company 

Published March, 1904 



Printed by 
J; B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A. 



CONTENTS 

¥¥ 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

PAGE 

Father Confessor to the Sea ii 

" The Body of an Unknown Man" 13 

ViEILLESSE DE BoHEME IS 

Ballade to Bohemians 17 

A Ballad of Broken Men 19 

Her First Train 22 

A Ballade of Lost Loves 24 

While they played Tres Jolie 26 

A Dainty Rogue in Porcelain 28 

A Splendid Creature 31 

A Ballad of Bass '. 33 

At Half-past Five 36 

Second- Sight 39 

Cast Before 41 

To THE Caricaturists 44 

5 



PAGE 

Whitsunday Vespers 46 

One Night 48 

DULCE RiDENTUM 5I 

My Neighbors 53 

De Excelsis 56 

Les Hommes qui Rient 59 

A Sonnet on Color 62 

A Picture of Genre 63 

Latter-Day Litany 65 

" And 'a Babbled 0' Green Fields" 66 



IN MEMORIAM 

" Gen. Sherman died at 1.50 p.m." 71 

De Long 73 

Thurlow Weed 78 

England's Forgotten Worthies 80 

With a Copy of the Poems of Alexander Smith ... 82 

Portrait of a Nobleman 84 

Campanini's " Lohengrin" 86 

In Memoriam — J. 88 

Fitz-James O'Brien 90 

6 



POEMS OF NEW YORK 

PAGE 

Old Saws and See-Saws 95 

On a Forgotten By-way 97 

At Trinity 99 

Gratis Plena 104 



¥¥ 



Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the publishers for consent to 
include in this volume a number of the poems which appeared originally in 
T/te Century Magazine, Scribner's Magazine, Our Animal Friends, Puck, 
and The Argonaut. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



FATHER CONFESSOR TO THE SEA 

Brown wave beating beneath, and brown wing 
hovering over — 
Tell us, cliff-dweller, tell us what is the song of 
the sea? 
Thine to its pulse is attuned as the purple wrist- 
beat of a lover — 
Then tell us, cliff-dweller, tell us what note 
hath its grief, hath its glee ? 

Lark hath a tale of the night, a songburst of sun- 
burst the token — 
Doth not thy brown breast swell with a song- 
burst, the tale of the sea? 
.Nightingale throbs on the dusk the plaint of all 
hearts day hath broken — 
As they know the day and the night, the soul 

of the sea is in thee. 
II 



But at the lip of the deep, when it sobs, when it 
shouts, when it roysters. 
Ever thou Hstest, O bird, thy fate as thy fore- 
bear's to be 
Songless and patient and dumb, brown friar, in 
thy cHff-crowning cloisters, 
Heartful with sins and with woes of thy peni- 
tent mighty, the sea. 



"THE BODY OF AN UNKNOWN MAN" 

I CAME at dawn from out the silent house 

{The last night's kisses warm upon my lips), 

Wearied the dance, and stilled the revel's rouse; 
Done the long joys, where these joys found 

eclipse 
( The last night's kisses zvarm upon my lips) . 

I mind the street; it runneth broad and straight 
{The last night's pressure warm upon my 
throat), 
River to river, dawn's to sunset's gate. 

Trees arched it; one bird waked — I heard its 

note 
{The last night's pressure warm upon my 
throat). 

I mind the wharf, — a wharf disused and lone 
{The last night's whispers sighing in my 
ears), — 

13 



Gray waters weltered 'round each slimy stone ; 
Gray waters weltered through its crazy piers 
{The last night's whispers sighing in my 
ears) . 

The tide went out. I marked its ebb desist 
{The last night's glances graven on my brain). 

I heard, below, great horns shriek in the mist, 
Saw ghosts of ships dim drifting to the main 
{The last night's glances graven on my brain). 

The city woke. I heard its hum and stir 

{The last night's odors in my nostrils quick). 

I said : " Thank God, this is no grief to her; 
This path she led she strewed with raptures 

thick" 
{The last night's odors in my nostrils quick). 

Small travail mine; long planned and picked my 
way 
{The last night's kisses warm upon my lips). 
I stare at noontide from the glassy bay; 
Beneath my head the long swell lazy slips 
{The last night's kisses frozen on my lips). 
14 



VIEILLESSE DE BOHEME 

Eheu fugaces! Where are they? 
The creeping day, the flying night, 
The warmth, the color, clamor, light — 
Friend of the scythe and hour-glass, say, 
Eheu fugaces ! Where are they ? 

Eheu fugaces ! Where are they ? 

The songs we sang, the cups we quaffed, 
The eyes that shone, the lips that laughed- 

Old mower, went they by your way? 

Eheu fugaces ! Where are they ? 

Eheu fugaces ! Where are they ? 

The lights that lined the lonely street, 
When homeward tripped the dainty feet 
That fled, against the glance of day — 
Eheu fugaces! Where are they? 
15 



Eheu f ugaces ! Where are they 

Who walked the ward, who trod the court? 

Stout fellows all for toil or sport. 
Ah, who shall break, then he shall pay — 
Eheu f ugaces ! Where are they ? 

Eheu f ugaces ! Where are they ? 

The old jaw drops, the old veins freeze; 

And where is Lil, and where's Louise, 
Whose kisses made a " yes" of " nay" — 
Eheu f ugaces! Where are they? 

Eheu f ugaces ! Where are they ? 

We've made our running, tossed our dice. 
And Time's are loaded. In a trice — 

Perhaps a year, perhaps a day — 

They'll ask: " The garrulous and gray, 

Eheu fugaces ! Where are they ?" 



i6 



BALLADE TO BOHEMIANS 

We have the poems and the plaques, 

The smile — or nod — of every muse. 
The hate of critics and of claques, 

We've all the best esprit may choose. 

But reason here my rhyme subdues. 
To say, despite profession's mine, 

The prizes great to win or lose, 
Brethren, I fear they're Philistine. 

Ours are the lives tradition tracks. 

With blushes that her smiles excuse. 
Where Thomas sins, but stumbles Max. 

You change the names, the things confuse. 

Such glamors aye the sight abuse. 
Still this of truth I yet define : 

The walks that Satan most eschews. 
Brethren, I fear they're Philistine. 
17 



Ours is the purse a clasp that lacks, 

Ours is the hand that can't refuse ; 
No grim remorse our dreams attacks 

With self -preferment to accuse. 

And yet, when honest debt accrues, 
The souls that feel for honor fine 

For honor's sake, with Gentiles, Jews, 
Brethren, I fear they're Philistine. 

l'envoi 

This smacks, I know, of pulpits, pews ; 

To somnolence yourselves consign ; 
Yet lives that Heaven kindliest views, — 

Brethren, I fear they're Philistine. 



i8 



A BALLAD OF BROKEN MEN 

Gentiles, I know of defeat ; 

I have been out a campaign ; 
Served in the storm and the sleet, 

Marched in the mud and the rain. 
Honor I lost, which is bad; 

Life have I kept, which is worse; 
You've all my gleanings of glad 

Here, in the swing of my verse. 
Aye But what matters all this? 

Fortune, what e'er be her pique, 
Slays not a ghost of a kiss 

Last night that died on my cheek. 
Memories bitter arise; 

Mine were not chivalrous foes; 
Insult a poison supplies 

Ranker than injury knows. 
19 



I've in their market-place stood, — 

Yea, in their pillory stalled, — 
Sport for their ruffians found good, 

Jeered of their wantons ribald. 
Ghosts of old shames and old wrongs 

Troop But what matters all this ? 

Flee, their fell ominous throngs. 

From the white sprite of my kiss. 
I shall know more of defeat; 

This, my first losing campaign, 
I shall renew, recomplete — 

Theirs without turning one lane. 
Mine's not the heart that can hope, 

Mine's not the head that can plan. 
Mine's not the cunning to cope : 

Courage? Mine's but of the can. 
Aye But what matters all this? 

Fortune, whate'er be her pique. 
Stays not the birth of each kiss — 

Hastes not its death on my cheek ! 
Thou who hast known me to trust, 

When hast Thou known me to pray? 
Say I not : All is but just ? 

Is there more pliant a clay ? 

20 



Hear, then, my prayer — it is this : 
That I, so Httle who seek, 

From some new birth of her kiss, 
Live but its Hfe on my cheek. 



21 



HER FIRST TRAIN 

Muses and graces appear! 

Fountain Pierian flow! 
Greuze in the spirit be near ! 

Aid me, O shades of Watteau! 
Ancients and Moderns a-row, 

Strike me your worthiest strain, 
Little my theme do I know — 

'Tis the young lady's First Train, 

Ah ! in my heart there is fear, 

Chill in its coming as snow ; 
She who approacheth me here, 

Stately and sweeping and slow — 
Could I have romped with her? No. 

This Duchess ? Oh, dream most profane ! 
All that was decades ago — 

'Tis the young lady's First Train. 



How shall I suit her? It's clear 

Battledoor, racquet, and bow, 
Barred are and banned. In this sphere 

Certes I'm somewhat de trop; 
Still, we accustomed may grow. 

Standing-ground common regain, 
Even if — presage of woe! — 

'Tis the young lady's First Train. 

l'envoi 

Comrades, to friend and to foe. 
Thus my changed bearing explain. 

Say! " If aught's turned him a beau, 
'Tis the young lady's First Train." 



23 



A BALLADE TO LOST LOVES 

What has become of them all ? you ask, 

Fan and Florry and Jane and Jill, 
Mary and Madge. Beshrew the task. 

If questioned nothing, my lies are nil. 

They were, they are not — what will you ? Still, 
If you'll solve me a problem of yesterday, 

I'll read your riddle with hearty will; 
Say, what becomes of the pins, I pray ? 

Francis Villon, full as a cask. 

Seems too soaked for a drop to spill. 
Under his old-world, cut-purse mask, 

Sang this music to words that thrill. 

Where is Flora ? the rogue would trill 
In querulous note and a hang-dog way; 

But could he, master of quip and quill. 
Say what becomes of the pins, I pray? 

24 



This year's lambs in the pasture bask, 

This year's mutton is good to grill ; 
Whitsun's pullets were eggs at Pascli ; 

Michaelmas chickens the cook will kill. 

So love's dead doings make food to fill 
With tid-bit thinking a wise gourmet. 

Can you count your dinners ? For further skill, 
Say, what becomes of the pins, I pray? 

l'envoi 

Friends, regret is an unmixed ill, 
A devil's worry one's wits to fray, 

A figuring fever my screed will chill — 
Say, what becomes of the pins, I pray ? 



25 



WHILE THEY PLAYED TRES JOLIE 

Shimmer of gems in each shell-like ear, 
Shimmer of satin or black brocade. 

(I marvel much that it is not clear 
In which of these she was last arrayed.) 

At her creamy throat there was yellow lace 

That a little gold dog-whip held in place. 
Wicked and lithe and sweet, 
From sleek head to small feet, 

From the soft brown fringe at her broad, low 
brow, 
From the kerchief clinging her neck about : 
But it comes to my brain, and goes not out — 

/ wonder where is my lady now? 

For she danced so hard, and she danced so fast. 
In the latest waltz of her latest ball 

(Did she dream at all that it was the last?). 
She fell from my arms. But the dead so fall; 
26 



And I knew of a pang 'neath the red and white, 

As of blade behind by the shoulders sped, 
With its tip twice turned in the heart. In fright 

They shrieked and crowded and stared and 
fled— 
Fled from me and what Death made mine. 

The flute's wild treble, the drum's mad whirr 
Ceased. In the vast, bare waxen shine 

Three of us — I, with Death and her. 

Diamond shimmer in shell-like ear ; 

But the gray-green gems of her eyes unrayed 
Till my bosom chilled with a frozen fear 

And shame of being of her afraid. 
There was yellow lace at her throat so fair, 
A little gold dog- whip held it there ; 

Saintly and stark and sweet, 

From sleek head to small feet, 
From the fringe I kissed at her broad, low brow. 

From the throat I kissed with the lace about. 

Then it came to my brain — it will ne'er go 
out — 
/ wonder where is my lady now? 



27 



A DAINTY ROGUE IN PORCELAIN 

Skilled were I in proper slang, 
Were I bard of plaque and vase, 

Mine the metric tricks of Lang, 
Safer might I try this face. 

But one schooled in psychic twist 
Limned my Lady, Dear Disdain, 

In one line (the " Egoist") 
Dainty rogue in porcelain. 

Here is every feature seen, 
Caught and fixed her very air. 

From high heel of tight bottine 
To her Gainsbro's saucy flare. 

So it hems her very frock, 
Taper waist and bust it metes, 
28 



Sets the small, sweet nose a-cock, 

With the brown brow fringe completes. 

Times I think, by Martyr Charles, 

Sent us out of pagedom here. 
Ere the day of civil snarls, 

This small, ruffling cavalier. 

Then, as slenderest musket-mark. 

Following through the midland towns, 

Rupert, last laid fair and stark, 
Sweet and dead on Naseby downs. 

Phyllis in a pastoral 

Hymned by some bucolic flat ; 
Yet, why amplify at all. 

When it's summed above so pat? 

Skyey blue, and pearly gray. 

Pink of petals, white of fleece, 
So she might have stepped one day 

From some splendid mantel-piece. 
29 



Color lack the lines I trace — 

Yet, friend, were the rascal thine, 

To thy chilly chimney-place 

Wouldst thou her for long consign ? 



30 



A SPLENDID CREATURE 

If Charlotte knows a line of French or Latin, 

May I — a fate improbable — be blest; 
But Charlotte's more than regal in black satin, 
With crimson knots, puffs, slashing, and the 
rest. 

> 
If Charlotte's lips have ever yet been sinful 
Of sense, then east and west were south and 
north ; 
But they're like grapes — a smooth, ripe, sump- 
tuous skinful; 
And, oh, their red would shame a George the 
Fourth. 

If any meaning hides in Charlotte's glances, 
The meaning is not known to Charlotte's brain ; 

But no such devil's distillation dances 
In the dusk Hades of an absinthe plain. 
31 



When Charlotte's cheek shall flush for what she 
feeleth, 

I'll go to Rome to expiate my faults : 
But carmine no more clear through olive stealeth 

From chaste emotions than from wine or waltz. 

If Charlotte's soul won't fit within her thimble, — 
If either soul or thimble she's to fit, — 

May I then force a pace, already nimble, 
Towards the confines of the scriptural pit. 

Should I from Charlotte turn to other misses, 
Charlotte would weep, perhaps — perhaps she'd 
sneeze ; 
But she likes caramels, and I like kisses, 

And we'll be friends while we may trade on 
these. 

She's not the kind of moon one needs to cry for. 
Although she'd rather take, perhaps, than give; 

O Lottie, Lottie, Lottie ! — whom I'd die for — 
With whom, withal, I should not care to live. 



32 



A BALLAD OF BASS 

Bring me a bottle of Bass's ! 

Lager's for palates of ham, 
Whiskey for suicides, lasses 

Stick to their claret and cham. 

Brandies of peach, grape or cherry. 
Burn them — on puddings. A tass 

Tastes not so badly of sherry — 
But bring me a bottle of Bass ! 

Bring me a bottle of Bass's ! 

Blessed be the almond-like twang. 
High in the still Alpine passes 

Goths the brew tasted and sang — 

Sang till the vulture's eyes glistened, 
Sang like the bugles for fight, 
33 



Sang till the stunned echoes listened, 
Holding their voices for fright. 

When on the hill there by Senlac 

Harold his rampart saw fail, 
Say they that England did men lack ? 

No. What she needed was ale. 

Think you his cause 'twas that stayed him? 

Strains of the priests' far-off chant, 
Love or despair, which ? that made him 

Hold through all dangers that daunt? 

Nay, if Death's clasp, which he sought, was 

Soft as his lost Edith's lap. 
So may we die, for the thought was 

Born of this wonderful tap. 

To Crecy's bowmen, Albuera's 

Deathless and dead fusileers, 
Waterloo's guards, Talavera's 

Generous and stout grenadiers — 
34 • 



Aye, to the men whose blood spattered 
Inkerman's heights as this glass 

Spatters t4ie marble — what mattered? 
All had their rations of Bass ! 



35 



AT HALF-PAST FIVE 

A FEBRUARY FANCY 

This is a common dream enough — 

You've dreamt it, friend, and so have I 
Along with Hke romantic stufif 

Of how and when a man would die. 
Futile! It matters little, when 

Upon Death's roll we're reached and read 
Where are we; the one wish is then 

For more names 'twixt ours and the head. 
We lazy fellows like to prate 

Of battles o'er and marches done; 
Yet in the grim king's army great, 

Conscript, methinks, is every one. 
Yet more a fool than dreamer he 

(And fools in this are most alive) 
Who may in dreams, seen dreams to be, 

Joy not. I'd die at half-past five, 
36 



Then when the flood of Broadway's tide 

Sets upward through the winter mist 
From the sHm city's either side, 

Drawn Hke thin glove on slender wrist; 
With all the league of lights aflare, 

Above the hurrying roar and bustle 
That makes for avenue and square, 

As if for life were strained each muscle; 
When Trinity points, there below. 

Still skyward, with its awful face 
Framed by the red sun's afterglow. 

In solemn flame from spire to base — 
Then, in this queer old cross-town street, 

By some dim window, where, at length, 
Day, dying, wholly failed to meet 

The task that taxed its noonday strength, 
As in my dull ear duller grew 

The hum, as fainter to my eyes 
The shimmer of the street-lamps through 

The mist that took in two worlds rise, 
A moment would my numb brain seize 

What prank Fate played so straight-faced 
well. 



37 



To keep me toiling like to these 
For what I could not dying tell — 

A moment would there at the rest 

Flash laughter — far would buzz their hive, 

Then stilled this beat here in the breast, 
As night came down at half-past five. 



38 



SECOND-SIGHT 

Though no man twice this way may tread, 

And man at most and best am I, 
No clearer when the course is sped 

Shall I its latest stage descry. 
I see it ; other ways I see, 

And they are smooth, most rugged this, 
Thorns hedge it; by them flowers be 

Sweeter than all things save a kiss. 
They end upon the sun-bathed heights, 

This burrows in a darksome pit; 
And lighter than its days their nights. 

But this appointed is, forewrit. 
I shall be robbed, and bruised, and maimed; 

Shall filth and mire my garments smear. 
And I before men shall be shamed. 

And shall cry out for pain and fear. 
And rains that sting like flame, for cold, 

Shall vengeful on my temples beat, 

39 



Hoar-frosts shall clothe me as a mold, 

Winds search my heart to quell its heat. 
Then shall come fever, famine, thirst. 

With changeful humors of the skies, 
And I shall know naught is the worst, 

Cursed ever by a dread surmise. 
All must I suffer — for the end 

Will flee by so much as I haste, 
I have so much of sighs to spend, 

So much of bitterness to taste. 
Yet at its every tortuous turn 

My eyes shall seek along the path. 
To know if they may him discern 

Who of my coming knowledge hath. 
All leagues, all years unlessened yet 

Lie 'twixt his station and my place; 
Yet somewhere by the roadway set 

He stands, and I shall know his face — 
Shall know him, cry with voice elate : 
" Thou, Master ?" Hear the words he saith 
" Yea, friend, it is for thee I wait, — 

I am the messenger of Death." 



40 



CAST BEFORE 

Pleasant the page, and dear the room, 
And soft the circle pallid bright 

The lamp-shine makes within the gloom — 
In oceaned dark an isle of light. 

And to me who, of all her train, 
For her dear sake am vigil keeping. 

The midnight bows, and at my pane 
With fitful sobs is softly weeping. 

Sweet hour, and adjuncts of the hour 
Still sweeter, while I read these stories, 

Wherein by his, our Chaucer's, power 
The Red Horse dons the Tabard's glories. 

Yet in a vast aild rayless dark. 

This world to unvexed thought displayed, 

41 



And these whose antique ways I mark, 
Sink in the shadow of one shade. 

The shadow of the shape I see — 
A prophet's instant, cycles long — 

From Lethe dip that draught for me 

Which dulls the eye and stills the tongue. 

When those who seek their way to bed 
This door shall pass with noiseless feet. 

And hurried, as in formless dread 

To rouse some form they fear to meet — 

When all this silent emptiness 

Shall peopled be to some now near, 

With faces on whose blank distress 
Despair writes out the sign of fear — 

When storm and shine and moonlight's flow 
Shall seek this chamber, blank and bare. 

Like those dumb friends who may not know 

Why cold the couch, unfilled the chair, 

42 



And on the outskirts of the town, 

Where now I passed with measured pace, 

An August rain shall trickle down, 
Slow oozing to my coffined face. 



43 



TO THE CARICATURISTS 

A PENCIL is, I know, a potent thing : 

There's one of you, a plump and merry lad, 
With his sent to a great man's heart a sting 

That laid him dead — but first it drove him mad. 
Of guns and guards it sits an easy chief : 

Dread it great scamps as small ones dread a 
baton. 
Long since it locked the handcuffs of a thief, 
The greatest known to history — and Manhat- 
tan. 
Who, like it, at the powerful great may scoff ? 

A green-room, stripping tinsel. Ye beholders, 
Spy here the Emperor's emperor, Gortschakoff, 
And there the head for Earth's most blue-veined 
shoulders. 
An earl and marquis in a step of two. 

Proud beauty limned as Eve inspired of evil ; 
44 



And cardinals are crocodiled till blue 

The air, and with anathemas uncivil. 
A Faineant's mace in storm of castled wrong, 
Mocking of Kings the ire, of mobs the pas- 
sion — 
Doth Cupid dull that point so sharply strong? 
For yet, messieurs, you've never changed a 
fashion. 



45 



WHITSUNDAY VESPERS 

EX PEDE — ? 

Though lies our street in sultry slumber, 

Sun-steeped and stained from curb to curb, 

There's something in the matching number 
Across that doth our dreams disturb. 

A sleek head o'er a volume bended, — 

I know it is some godly book 
Wherein she's wrapt, that, till it's ended, 

We sinners twain are free to look. 

A hand, far whiter than the curtain. 
That toys forever with its string: 

It's sweet, but sacrilege, I'm certain. 
To put one's whiskers for the thing. 

And craned to vantage more ecstatic. 
And quite beyond convention, Ned 
46 



Wishes to Jove his pate erratic 

Were vice her small brother's head. 

Yet some one's will be. So commands 
Her woman's fate, that shall resign 

Those glossy plaits to touch of hands 
Less pure, perhaps, than Ned's or mine. 

Procul, O procul ! so we pray, 

For pagan prayers are all our ken; 

Far, far be that profaning day 

That schools thee in the ways of men ! 

She rises. Comes she to the door ? 

We cease our stare. He hums " My Queen," 
And looks a single instant more; 

Then — " Hang it, chum, she's not thirteen !" 



47 



ONE NIGHT 

A DEAD white, like the pillow where it lies, 

A raven dusk, that twines the blind barred 
gloom, 

Crossed hands and rigid limbs and lidded eyes. 
These make the awfulness of this still room. 

The light burns blue. I watch beside the bed 
The sad solemnity of her dead face. 

Not strange it seems. Of when death entered 
The heart to filch the casket bears no trace. 

It would not startle me if it should speak ; 

I mind one night this very look it wore; 
I wondered then if on wan brow and cheek 

The grave tale writ held less than truth or 
more. 

48 



I wondered if the soul the eyelids bent 
Traversed infinity held within the brain, 

Or if the look unto the face was lent 

By emptiness of thought-benumbing pain. 

I shall not know. Yet would it comfort me 
To learn those days untroubled by a thought 

Of all that had been, all that was to be, 

The past a blank to her, the future naught. 

For all her life in readiness was drest. 

Spotless for Heaven ; so the thought is mine. 

That God may will some foretaste of near rest, 
Have given, of acceptance sure in sign. 

Ah, God! She spoke then when my watch was 
done; 

Said it was long for me — ^her great eyes burned, 
Swimming in that dimmed light as mine in sun — 

And grief it is to wish her grief returned. 

She would not mind. More than all souls below 
Her life in this was patterned after Christ, 
49 



That in great ill of greater good to know 
Elsewhere, to other joy, for her sufficed. 

Shall I yet hear her ? If it be no sin 

To seek in Heaven a vanished joy of earth 

I trust to her the narrow way to win, 

Whose good, full life is of the newer birth. 

Yet this doubt troubles. That the young and hale 
Shall be ere death ripe in my body old. 

And old men's spirits with their bodies frail : 
Grow bowed and worn, and palsied, poor and 
cold. 

Wherefore I pray, pale hands on pangless breast, 
White hands with whiteness of the young 
year's snow. 

That ye may take me to your quiet blest 
Or I shall say, she died a year ago. 



so 



DULCE RIDENTUM 

I HAVE never seen you do aught but laugh. 

Do you think to-night you could laugh with me, 
If we stopped the doing of things by half, 

And drifted down to the Eastern sea ? 

Drifted — not in a pleasure-boat, 
With dabble of hand and dip of oar, 

And songs to the moon, that seem afloat 
Sweeter than self-same songs ashore — 

But as of driftwood, scornful sport 

For swirl and swash of the slipping tide. 

By smiling villa and frowning fort. 
To the ocean waiting below, outside. 

Oh, I can see — and it brings belief 
Of some true stuff in a lazy brain — 
51 



That these come to me in sharp relief, 

Your lips that part and your eyes that strain. 

And the arching turn of the smooth white neck, 
Of supple shoulder, and slender waist, 

To give the sea but a moment's check. 

And the salt death drink with the bitter taste. 

rare red lips of a rarer red, 

For the rare white teeth that a rarer white 
You make, if unto the sea's great dead 
In such wise sallied we out to-night. 

Could you kiss with only the parting's pain. 
Would the love in the life of you warm you 
through, 

Fed from the heart by each fine blue vein. 
Till the sea-cold caught at the heart of you ? 

1 have never seen you do aught but laugh. 

Play-day love, could you laugh with me, 
If we stopped the doing of things by half, 
And drifted down to the Eastern sea? 



52 



MY NEIGHBORS 

I. 

His voice is hard as is the nib 

Of that stub pen he uses ; 
'Twould scare the contents of a crib 

Into its last of snoozes. 

Harder his manner, but as edge 
That cuts, of gem resplendent, 

The head naught pierces save that wedge 
'Twixt plaintiff and defendant.* 

His soul is drowned in every blot, 
Made nil with each erasure, — 

Small wonder, for this point's least spot 
Could fill its roomiest space, sure. 

* Smith vs. Jones. 



Part pedagogue, part martinet, 

The rest, by direst labor, 
A foe at Circuit feared — and yet 

This is my office neighbor. 

11. 

Ten hairs upon his upper lip 
Struggle for life, yet at each sip 
He wipes them, as he feared to trip 

Amid their tangles. 
Though voting first for Hayes, I know, 
A ripened sentence he'll bestow 
On every subject broached below. 

From Froude to bangles. 

He loves to think we think him old; 
'Twas Christmas he complaining told 
Of all the claims that manifold 

Had nephews, nieces. 
On new Anons the last on dit 
He has, with Dizzy's private key 
Endymion's inwardnesses he 

Smiling releases. 
54 



He's friends in every artist trade; 
He'll prove why Wagner can't be played 
Among us, and he knows each blade 

That cuts the Faber. 
In fine, he talks like a review ; 
In closet finds each sentence true 
Before he tries it — will this do. 

My table neighbor ? 

L^ENVOI 

Your cavils many — and not few 

Your snubs — some words are sabres. 

Yet now I think the balance due 
Is not from me, my neighbors. 



SS 



DE EXCELSIS 

The sport is rich, the fun is rare; 

No joke of Jerrold's own composing 
Could at this hour, and in this air. 

Keep, as this does, my eyes from closing-. 
The weary waltzers swirl below, 

The weary wits discourse in drivel ; 
Beneath the hot jet's feverish glow 

Fair, weary faces, blanch and shrivel. 
That yours, most fair, is still most wan, 

Dear friend, there's no sincere denying; 
Wherefore, I laugh to look upon 

Your gawky Strephon out there sighing. 
I watch the would-be careless stroll. 

The furtive look, so would-be prudent ; 
A well-worn beat, a new patrol, 

The case is of this lovelorn student. 
S6 



I laugh, and yet it is no whim ; 

Here in the full shine of your glances 
Would I were back, to glow, like him, 

Where now and then a stray beam chances. 
It's strange; this blood's the same that thrilled 

Your glove to hold, your chair to proffer — 
It stirs more for a wine-glass spilled 

Than for all outpour you may offer. 
One ages fast. A fool, a boy 

I was but then, a sleepless dreamer. 
Made drunk with little draughts of joy. 

Made faint with fear's benumbing tremor. 
And now, when Day for flight unfurled 

His wings, this wine so flavored, scented, 
I drank ; the corner of the world 

He turns, I'm drinking undemented. ' 

Hail, Empress ! — that we ne'er had met 

Would God ! — your morituri greet you ; 
I cry it, meaning would that yet 

Fate held it stored for me to meet you; 
To live again one midnight fleet, 

Its scents, its sights, its strains, its laughter; 
To walk that sultry midnight street 

And Death's crown on the brief thereafter. 
57 



* * * * * 4 

But, Strephon! Well, I laugh to-day, 

Yet you, gourmand of all sensation. 
Find ticklish to a taste blase 

A plain but hearty adoration. 
Aye, he (I've seen the rest " drop out" — 

Your wake of sharks are pampered fishes), 
May in a year or thereabout 

Yawn all my yawns, wish all my wishes. 



S8 



LES HOMMES QUI RIENT 

In days when Little Nap was Great, 

Ere yet Omniscience had blundered, 
And Hugo kept his exiled state 

And with the Channel-rollers thundered. 
They called us — and the nickname took 

Better than most of pavement chaff — 
A name robbed from his latest book : 

" The men who laugh." 

We laughed, as love, they say, at locks 

(The ones the P. D. settles for), 
At knocks, or blue-blouse pavement knocks, 

Or deputies upon our door. 
We laughed like very kings at pawns, 

At pledges like elected members. 
Of our effects what going gones 

Old five per cent, a month remembers ! 
59 



Yet conscience killed each Saturday, 
For erring self the fatted calf, 

And so we kept our sobriquet : 
" The men who laugh," 



The men who laugh ! God knows how soured, 

And no one else, I trust, how poor, 
With debts consolidated dowered, 

Of revenues, of duns secure: 
Their struggles like the frog within 

The well — who further fell by half 
Each leap — 'twas no light name to win — 

" The men who laugh." 



Old friend, perhaps the counsel of 

The Board — what is't? — of apple-stands? — 
Laughs yet. You grip the rounds above : 

Those shoulder high employ my hands. 
But, somehow, to this land of mine, 

Bohemia, — or Alsatia is it? — 
Our brother god to him of wine 

Pays every week a briefer visit. 
60 



And as the stealthy lustres steal 

With swifter step and deeper craft, 

I'm growing more and more, I feel, 
The man who laughed. 



6i 



A SONNET ON COLOR 

GRAY 

I KNEW beneath the town by kill and bay 

That pallid^ ripples plashed on sheenless beaches 
And all the level ocean's windless reaches 

Were dumb with mist ; that all was cool and gray. 

For morning's car made yet no disarray 

In morning's clouds; nor held the desert street 
White heralds of midsummer's swooning heat, 

Nor any sign or promise of the day. 

Yea, and I knew — ^why dear should this shade be 
Save as to moths the hue of ruddy flame? — 

That in her gray eyes ne'er should my eyes see 
How love's dawn with its tender day-spring 
came, 

Eyes with chill clearness of her tiring glass, 

Depths wherein shades of shipwrecked souls re- 
pass 



A PICTURE OF GENRE 

Not in the seat of the scorner, 

In the seat of the scorned, God wot ; 

On a curb of Bad Avenues corner 
Content, a dreamy sot. 

With his head full of fumes and fancies, 
And his heart of a deep delight 

In the damp wind's veering dances, 

And the drip of the droop-winged night. 

In the clouds' down darkling lower, 

And the lamp lanes' blink in the breeze, 

That hastes on its way to scour 
The mist from the morning seas. 

And the hearts of men despair, 
For the ragged hucksters laugh, 
65 



And the last car rolls in the square, 
And the night-birds drop their chaff. 

But, his head full of fumes and fancies, 
And his heart with a deep delight 

In the damp wind's veering dances, 
And the drip of the gusty night, 

He glows at the Rembrandt touches. 

The Tuscans by their stand 
In the blown brown flame, as he clutches 

The lemon he bought in his hand. 



61 



LATTER-DAY LITANY 

A FRAGMENT 

God keep us all ! From fire and flame, 
From battle, murder and the breath 

Of pestilence, from good men's blame, 
From penury, from sudden death — 
Deliver us ! 

God keep us all ! From public foes. 

From traitorous wile, from scheming hate, 

From anarch's as from despot's woes. 
Deliver us! 



6s 



"AND 'A BABBLED O' GREEN FIELDS" 

" As the night wore on, it grew evident that his mind 
was wandering, — for he rapped weakly on his bed's side, 
and feebly ejaculated: 'Two sours!' At two o'clock and 
ten minutes he smiled sweetly and beckoned to his friend, 
Mr. Theodore Everdry, the most assiduous of his watchers. 
Mr. Everdry bent quite close to the dying man, who whis- 
pered brokenly : ' It's slow — Teddy — too slow ; reach for 
— the — wine-card.' And so, swan-like, the gentle spirit," 
etc. — Memoir of William Waterproof, Esq. 

" Reach for the wine-card, Teddy," 

The pace becomes too slow; 
The hours begone already 

Are more than those to go. 
As glum as ghosts that wander 

Unrited by the Styx, 
We sit, while Chronos, yonder 

Marks out his two by six. 
66 



" Reach for the wine-card, Teddy ;" 

We've cracked a medley sort; 
We've tapped the Burton heady, 

Uncapped the heavy port; 
CHquot's coquettish matron 

Lies deep as Dido's dux, 
The shrine of our good patron 

We've reached — kind Sanctus Crux. 



" Reach for the wine-card, Teddy ;" 

With thee 'twas always so, 
While yet your legs were steady, 

Askew'd your head-piece go. 
For thee no fields Elysian, 

No Heaven Islamite, 
No Paradise — a vision 

Of bloodless anchorite. 



But when the day is ended. 
And sit the warriors thralled, 

Valhalla's heroes splendid 
Will hear their newest skald. 
67 



The hours begone already 
Are more than those to go; 

" Reach for the wine-card, Teddy," 
The pace becomes too slow. 



68 



IN MEMORIAM 



"GEN. SHERMAN DIED AT 1.50 P.M." 
(associated press bulletin) 

He is not dead ! To-night he sits among 
The warriors in Valhalla. At their board 

About his seat the mightiest captains throng : 
For him song rises. The strong wines are 
poured. 

Caesar doth welcome him. Great Frederick's 

head 
Bows in his honor. Gustav, he the bold, 
Gives him iron hand-clasp; stately in their tread 
The two great Dukes, great England's greatest 

two, 
Recount their Ramillies and Waterloo ; 
And the fierce Corsican his impatience chains, 
Hearkening the story of his vast campaigns. 

71 



Yea, and without the armies' fires are Ht — 
The fires of all our armies. Glad their cheer; 

Ghost bugles blow and shadowy guidons flit 
By troop and squadron as the soldiers hear 

That to their camp 'neath Heaven's highest dome 

The last of their Commanders Three comes home. 

He is not dead ! Nay, he doth more than live. 
He finds companionship earth can no longer give. 



n 



DE LONG 

"l HAVE FOUND DE LONG AND PARTY — ALL 

DEAD. — Melville" 

No harbor of all harbors 'neath God's sun 

Hath buoyed so much of all most priceless 
freight 
As this, since first a Spanish galleon 

Turned South from San Francisco's Golden 
Gate. 
But — how they cheered from wharf and yard and 
deck! 
The costliest cargo that those roads hath crost 
Was when to face want, famine, fever, wreck. 
To battle with the forces of the frost, 

The craft, whose light name hence shall holy 

be, 
Steered for the Northern death across that 
windless sea. 

73 



O lonely headlands of th' Alaskan strait! 

Ye watched that lonelier vessel as she passed; 
Saw ye his face grow gladly satiate 

Of peril as he neared the ice-fields vast? 
For not the salvo's roar, the cheering town, 

Nor Summer voyage o'er soft Pacific's swell 
Delight such souls, — nay. Nature's sternest frown, 

Sign of her fierce moods and implacable. 
So, where gray meeting seas the worlds divide 

With moaning wastes of chill and bitter foam, 
Methinks his step grew lighter as he eyed 

The confines of his all too narrow home. 

Northward — the night received them, and the ice. 

Chill shining bergs and chiller shining stars. 
Mocked them to whom one world would not 
suffice 
With toils and dangers, pestilences, wars. 
Northward — and East — ^the raving Arctic wind 
Stabbed at their hearts, pierced bone and mar- 
row through. 
And vaster streamed the trackless tract behind, 
Nor nearer got their goal nor larger grew, 
And o'er their heads strange birds of omen 

flew. 

f4 



Then — stayed and stopped — the hungry ice be- 
neath 
Gnawed ravening at the vessel's groaning sides ; 
And shut were they in horror as a sheath, 

'Twixt the thick darkness and the frozen 
tides. 
And they became a memory to men 

Who said : " Lo ! these, too, meet the ancient 
fate!" 
And weeks grew months and months grew years 
— and, then, 
Behold the dead raised from their lodging 
strait ! 

Found ! But how found ? One blinded, one gone 
mad ! 
And some are dead — the missing of the roll 
Doth their sepulture, awful, riteless, sad. 

Swell the dread trophies of the Northern pole? 
Answer from out Siberia's lifeless waste. 

Answer from 'neath Siberia's leaden skies, 
Though none shall know the desperate ills they 
faced, 
Till at the Crack of Doom the dead arise. 
75 



Found — like a gunner lying by his gun 
They found the strong Republic's strongest 

son, 
Her eagle at his crest, her stars his shoulders 

on. 

O solemn service of that ancient faith ! 

From proudest minster, darkest catacomb; 
From where the Asian sunshafts scorch and 
scathe 
Judsean deserts — ritual of Rome, 
All ages have thy prayers and paeans heard; 

But ne'er in all the measure of thy time. 
More faithful flock received thy weightful word 
From lips of holier priest — or more sublime — 
Than when beside the frost-sealed " Lena" 

he 
Read in unchanging voice thy changeless 
liturgy. 

O stormy splendor of the Saxon cheer, 

What echoes hast thou waked of Afric night, 

When St. Arnaud the Legion — unto fear 

Most foreign — hurled into the flaming fight; 
76 



And those that roused on Alma's blood-soaked 
height 
At sunset of that red September day ; 
And those that taught the Rhine the Scottish 
might; 
And those that beat the walls of Monterey ! 
But the breath failing in the feeble shout 

That gave their envoys God-speed through the 
snow, 
Despair showed vanquished, and the sinking 
doubt 
Of famine born in slow and sickening throe; 
Aye, showed each hero, where were heroes 

all 
Ready with Death to grip in certainty to fall ! 
Gaunt corpses in weird solitudes they lie. 
But as th' Aurora's signet on their sky, 
So on the tablets of enduring fame, 
Transcribed in fire the letters of each name 

Of those who on our streets but now we saw. 
Nor paled, oh, blindness, with presaging awe. 



n 



THURLOW WEED 

OBIITj NOVEMBER 22, 1 882 

Last night there was one statesman in the land — 
Old Warwick, bent and blind, but Warwick 

still. 
With something left of Warwick's strenuous 
will, 

His subtle brain, and cunning, strong right hand. 

That made him despot mild, dictator bland. 
Now in the mighty city's proudest square 
The flags droop in the still November air 

For the last leader worthy of command. 

King-maker ! Aye, he made a line of kings 
Right kingly — but the people's servants yet — 
Through his wise choice that looked beyond the 
fret 
He lived in, of small men o'er little things. 

78 



Oh, gaunt, grand face, thou know'st the eternal 

dawn! 
The master of our master minds is gone. 



79 



ENGLAND'S FORGOTTEN WORTHIES 

ABBOTSFORD — I 827 

Lone figure, grandly worn, now fitly lame, 

Not sad I call thee- — he were rashly brave 

Who in thy presence, ever loving, gave 
Pity to scorch and sting like unearned flame. 
There have been martyrs — Ridley, held in flame 

While crept slow hand nigh round the dial's 
face, 

That Maid, chief pride alike of sex and race ; 
Mild Cranmer, dreading death just less than 

shame. 
These well obeyed a gracious Lord's behest. 

These left, thou tookest up laborious strife. 

Theirs, pledge fulfilled ; theirs, bound of tedious 
quest : 

Thine, battle at death's door with rebel life! 



O mighty deed ! How mighty when there fell 
From scorn's high priest* a proud and sad fare- 
well! 

* Carlyle. Vide review of Lockhart's " Life." 



8i 



WITH A COPY OF THE POEMS OF 
ALEXANDER SMITH 

I send the songs of one whose fame, dim grown. 
Hath kin and counterpart in every age. 
I love to-day his fierce, unequal page 
With what strange wealth of imagery bestrewn. 
I, one for all who did his hardship own, 

Fire heart, where fled the caged thoughts that 

Death 
Loosed when his rude hand checked thy gath- 
ered breath 
Back to the void ; or are our heads o'erflown 
By these 'scaped birds that wait a true lord's 

hand 
Ere shall they light again on sea or land ? 
No new star thou (they said thou wert a sun. 
Then, that their vision failed them every one), 

82 



But flame — and sky-born, like that which we 

mark 
Gleam and then glance behind th' eternal dark. 



83 



PORTRAIT OF A NOBLEMAN 

He eyes askant a dainty group 

Of actresses around my glass, 
The old man with the wearied stoop, 

The heavy lip, the mightiest mass 
Of brains that ever saw our era's light, 
" Lord" B. Disraeli, Garter Knight. 

Queer company : there's Dona Sol, 

Who wrought his bust there — blest the spot — 
Big Marie ; the rhyming roll 

Counts bitter sweet Forget-me-not, 
Yet meet ; for Centre, Left, and Right 
Played bouffe for this worn Garter Knight. 

Rare bouffe, than these his friends, who thought 
They saw with broken bound of field 

The old wrongs blood and treasure bought 
Unto the despot anarch yield. 



Maitre Offenbach no sound or sight 
Had droller for this Garter Knight. 

Rare bouffe, to whom his nights fatigued, 
Who deemed that every interest hung, 

Of a dominion thousand leagued, 

On quid of quill and twist of tongue. 

What fancies, odd, outre, and bright. 

Must owe this languid Garter Knight. 

What was he — Christian, Pagan, Jew? 

No Whig, 'tis clear, or Tory — Red? 
That which, he quick, we never knew 

We shall not know, he being dead : 
He'd have been all to serve the sleight 
Of B. Disraeli, Garter Knight. 

First to his grasp his leader fell ; 

His party next ; he bowed the pride 
Of " Progress ;" then he limboed well 

The nation-scarer — then — he died. 
What else was left the subtle might 
Of B. Disraeli, Garter Knight? 



CAMPANINI'S " LOHENGRIN" 

The sun has stricken the armor splendid, 
Till the silver scales into golden melt, 

And the stately sail of the swan is ended 

At the thronging bank of the sparkling Scheldt. 

The shout has risen, the strident clamor 
From the sense assured of a portent great, 

As the hero moves in his awful glamour, 
The gleaming shaft of a heavenly hate. 

Then, where the fierce drum savage hastened. 
In the troubled wake of the horns harsh blown, 

From the charmed hush of the tumult chastened, 
The swan knight sings to the swan — alone. 

There was one height left for the tenor-master. 
Who hath clearness taught to the silver bell, 
86 



Who may lend the trump when the strain grows 
vaster — 
A deeper volume, a broader swell. 

For, though the eye like the pendant glistens, 
When Fernand's voice to the pendant flows, 

In a mellow whisper, one knows he listens 
To mortal miming a mortal's woes. 

But in the old, half-sacred stories. 

The mystic mountain, the shining king, 

The awful cup, with its crimson glories, 
My faith was full as I heard him sing. 

And naught I'd known of the strange or terrent, 
Had the Grail-flame lighted his face upon. 

For 'twas the voice of an angel-errant, 
Wherewith he spake to the faithful swan. 



87 



IN MEMORIAM— J. O. 

The fan no longer flutters, 

And the whisper knows control, 

For the full contralto utters 
The Letter of Perichole. 

And I think luck not forsook you 
Above, and of all queer things, 

At the moment last they took you 
To lead in crown and wings. 

But the critics, clever people. 

They laugh. You're light, so light. 

(And so's the rain on the steeple, 
And the leaves that lift at night.) 

And Chopin, Wagner, Handel 
(Outgrown the Southern crew), 



Are stars. Your fame's a candle 
Death quenched in snuffing you. 

But for all the fan ne'er flutters, 
And the whisper knows control, 

When the full contralto utters 
The Letter of Perichole. 



89 



FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN 

This was our poet — one who strode 
These streets in ante-bellum ages, 

And smoked on street-car steps, and rode 
Down Broadway on the tops of stages. 

A Dublin gownsman, London rake, 
For grim romance, pathetic ditty ; 

No color from 'cross seas he'd take. 

But loved, and learned, and wrote our city. 

'Twas here he sowed each splendid crop 
Of fecund wind — here did he reap 

Fine whirlwinds. From the base or top 
His path was lighter, being steep. 

He swayed the sceptre, felt the lash. 
Wrought starving nights — by sated days 
90 



Petted his trooper's brown moustache, 
And sought and strolled life's sunny ways. 

From here he sallied forth to crown 
A flaring life with flaming death. 

God rest him ! There outside the town 
He waits the Doomsday trumpet's breath. 

Poor Fitz ! they say — yet when I'm dead 

I'll ask no pity, if a line 
Of all I've writ in some one's head 

Shall run as some of his in mine. 



91 



POEMS OF NEW YORK 



OLD SAWS AND SEE-SAWS 

From Eighth Street up, from Eighth Street 

down, 
This is the manner of this great town: 
From Eighth Street up, the women are spurning 

it; 
From Eighth Street down, the men are earning it. 

Borrowing, buying, begging it, lending it. 
From Eighth Street up, the women are spending 

it. 
'Twill be the manner of this great town 
Till Wall Street's up and Harlem's down, 

Till green grass grows in Tompkins Square, 
Till all the " L's" reduce their fare; 
From some street up, the women burning It, 
From some street down, the men still earning it; 

95 



Father from son, if need be, rending it, 

That daughter and wife may still be spending it. 

From Eighth Street up, from Eighth Street 

down — 
A see-saw rhyme and a see-saw town. 



96 



ON A FORGOTTEN BY-WAY 

The shabby street-cars jingling go 

Where modish coach-wheels rolled and ran, 

And back here from the roaring Row 
It leads from Beekman Street to Ann. 

En route to sup at Philip Hone's, 

And quiz our New World belles and beaux, 

Her feet tripped o'er these stones, 
Fair Kemble. And thy magic toes. 

Thou fairer Fanny, Ellsler named, 
Twinkled adown the pavement drear, 

While (for thy lissome sake defamed) 
Followed — with wraps — thy Chevalier, 

A gown of white, a girlish form. 

Footsteps unused that trembling pause! 

'Tis Garcia, frighted by the storm 
Of this, her debut night's applause. 



Again, oh, crinoline and mitts ! 

Oh, blue and brass with ruffles dight! 
A decorus mob of worthy cits — 

The ball to " Boz" is at its heisfht. 



^t)' 



'Tis Theatre Alley, yet its name 

They've spared. A squalid place by day. 

Where wrangling boys for coppers game, 
Where sottish vagrants snooze or stray. 

But when the sun shines slant and low 

O'er Trinity's subduing vane. 
Vanish these sordid shapes, and so 

The alley grows itself again. 

And when the dusk in deeper gloom 

Is whelmed, and o'er the flag-stones damp. 

As if the old stage-door to 'lume. 

Glimmers that lonely, midway lamp. 

These dear, dead ladies, they that thrilled 
The gay world of the " old Park's" time. 

Are with me, and — a vow fulfilled — 
To their sweet manes this light rhyme. 
98 



AT TRINITY 

Where Wall Street's head from full Broadway 
Takes portion of the surge and spray, 
By silent night, and roaring day, 
Its graves it guardeth. 

The jetsam of the swollen stream, 
Profounder far their peace doth seem. 
For tossing drift that from their dream 
The still close wardeth. 

In days when Bleeker Street was rus, 
And Murray Hill as is to us 
Champlain, Au Sable; when this fuss 
And fret were quiet ; 

When ladies yet might think it queer 
To date in i8 — ; when all here. 
In brief, was up-town — in the year. 
Say, '08 — I spy it. 

99 



Perchance, in there among the pews, 
Turned down his Sunday buckled shoes 
Knight Lawrence — ere that latest cruise — 
The stainless sinner! 

Trite wonder, where his tomb doth stand. 
Had he a thought? The rector's hand 
He pressed, most like. Just back to land, 
And drove to dinner. 

Yet, haply, here from me a span, 
Some stopped to chat of the new man 
In Portugal, and his great plan 
For Boney brewing. 

How Burr'd turned up again, some said, 
Young Irving made abroad great head, 
And how of Gallic power the spread 
We'd all be ruing. 

^ ^ ^ ■:¥ ^ "-^ '^ 

Splash, splash! the midnight's fresh-laid dust 
The swift aids churn the mud — needs must, 
The troops, from off Long Island thrust. 
Are marching nor'ward. 

100 



Lord Sterling's taken, and his men 
All slain — the field was but a pen 
Of slaughter: we're the King's again 
From this time forward. 

It buffets back the lines-men's drum, 
Steel-fringed the scarlet ribbons come, 
Strong silence through the sullen hum 
St. George back bringing. 

Even the gliding of their files. 
In step that tells upon the miles. 
They wheel — cling, clang, upon the aisles 
Their muskets ringing. 

Strain pipe and bellows! Belfry sway! 
Roar street and slip! We greet to-day 
Primmest of patres patrice, 
Great George! — it endeth. 

Scant gleaner I amid the dead; 
The reaper closely harvested ; 
A gesture here, a word there said, 
Are all he lendeth. 



What point or purpose had their fate ? 
They Hved, and unlived; Hke a slate 
The old place is — our names the late 
Their places borrow. 

Rubbed out, writ in ; it seemeth strange 
To me, and plain to you — we'll change; 
The old thought and the new will range 
This time to-morrow. 

And, silent ones, if what one saith 
You hear, and comforts life in death 
As death in life, you'll wish for breath 
To make me know it. 

For, somehow, when first seen the place, 
It seemed to nourish more the grace 
Of kinship than did all the space 
Above, below it. 

Come on, friend — here we may not lie ; 
Our place is taken, yet may I, 
And you, find some day time to die — 
A rest remaineth. 



Some spot is ours — a quiet nook, 
Where shade and shine make pipe and book 
To idlers pleasant : thither look, 
Where peace sole reigneth. 



103 



GRATIS PLENA 

" SCRAWLED AFTER THE BLIND EVENSONG^'' 

Here in this clattering Clinton Place, 
Where Arnold, and before, O'Brien 

Held for some merry years a pace 

That bards can't keep, but bards will try on- 

I hear (it drowns the clamor of 
The children in the court adjacent) 

The crier of the court above 

Dispense inharmonies complacent. 

Oh, bells of Grace ! Oh, bells of Grace ! 

What trope shall fit your chimes resounding 
Of romping feet o'erhead that race, 

Of infant imps piano-pounding? 

How are the holy psalmists slain, 
From Sullivan to St. Gregorius! 
104 



You jig it through each Lenten strain, 
And dirges make of anthems glorious. 

I used to love the churchly tunes, 
I used to have some memories holy 

Of childhood's sleepy Sunday noons, 
A still, old church, a choir that slowly 

Took up — the benediction ceased 

(Ah! ceased for some forever it is). 

And bowed the people and the priest 
In prayer — their solemn Nunc Dimittis. 

Oh, bells of Grace ! you've been as yet 
Too trustful in your power to mangle ; 

/ knew the corpse of " Olivette" 

That from your towers did writhing dangle. 

Oh, bells of Grace ! Oh, bells be curst. 
Could I but fix — with cunning Yankee — 

Your fate, 'twould be damnation's worst! 
You'd play for aye the hymns of Sankey. 



105 



MAR '■■': 1904 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



018 395 528 7 



